


Over My Dead Body

by orphan_account



Series: Six Degrees (More or Less) [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toris Laurinaitis arrives in Stockholm with many typical hopes of a university student- except that he also wants to escape the mob that has forced him into homelessness, constant fear, and hiding. Sweden is not far enough, it seems, or perhaps the limits of Vernaja Semya truly know no bounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over My Dead Body

“Hey. You’re Toris, right?” a blond-haired boy asks him. He’s holding a cigarette between his lips, and a matchbook in the other.

“Yes,” Toris replies, and is embarrassed with the squeak of his words that makes him sound three years younger. He is fifteen years old, small for his age, and the boy with the cigarette sitting on the edge of the concrete has 15 centimetres and probably a 7 or 8 kilos on him. He’s never seen him before- but that doesn’t mean anything. Toris has lived here since he was ten, but the nature of the apartment building’s affiliation means that lots of people are coming (recruits, new rich families interested in making bucks off death and money laundering and drugs) and going (sometimes people know too much and they end up dead in city streets with only a single bullet hole and no trace evidence).

“What happened to your arm, kid?” the blond kid asks, pushing his nearly white hair back from his face. He’s older, probably around eighteen, and his eyes are an odd shade of brown- they look red as the blood that is trickling from a cut on Toris’ face in the weak evening light.

Toris purses his lips and takes a seat on the kerb. Time and experience with the strangers in his apartment building has attempted to teach him not to trust anyone too readily, especially handsome young men who love taking advantage of the younger boys. Toris has very specific memories of teenagers who would talk to him and give him sweets, and end up desiring information about his parents. He feels anxious but the boy’s concern for his safety and wellbeing puts him at ease. Perhaps it’s a textbook example of mistaken trust that Toris is so known for, but he’ll find out soon enough.

“I fell,” he replies. “On the steps.”

“If you’re going to lie, at least come up with something better than that.”

Toris narrows his eyes, forcing himself to remain suspicious. “What’s your name?”

“Gilbert Beilschmidt.”

“German?”

“Prussian,” he replies proudly.

“Prussia doesn’t exist any longer,” Toris replies.

“Neither did Lithuania not too long ago, but that didn’t stop anyone, did it?” he replies with a slightly obnoxious chuckle. “And it certainly didn’t stop the Poles.”

“How do you know I’m from Lithuania? You’re new to the building, aren’t you?”

“Word gets around,” he replies vaguely. “Who you running from?”

“Huh?”

“I asked who you’re running from,” Gilbert says, as if that clarifies things. “You don’t show up beaten, breathing hard like you’ve just sprinted a few kilometres, so far away from the building by yourself. You’re what, thirteen?”

“Fifteen,” Toris replies with a sigh. “My father has got some friends over. One of them took a swing at me when I dropped the platter of food.”

“You wanna know a secret?” Gil inquires, a giant grin spreading across his comically pale skin.

“What?” Toris asks.

“I know a place you can hide whenever bad something happens. As long as you want.”

Toris crosses his arms over his chest and can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of his throat. “My father can find anyone. Vernaja Semya can find anyone,” he adds. The business of organised crime has no limits, and if Toris has learned anything it is that. That one can never escape the ties that form in a mob. It simply isn’t possible.

“Follow me, Tor,” Gilbert says.

Toris follows malleably. His mother tells him after she has too much to drink that he’s too trusting. He believes the best of the people he meets, and she tells him every happy hour in a gravelly slur, “If there’s any weakness to have, that is the most cowardly. Have the guts to believe the worst, then maybe you can make something of yourself.”

Gilbert produces a bicycle from the alleyway, and hops on. “Put your feet on the back axle, and hold on,” he says, but he’s already moving and Toris half falls into Gil’s back. He sputters backwards and settles his hands on his shoulders, a bit embarrassed. He hasn’t ridden on a bicycle since he lived in Lithuania, when he’d play pick-up games of basketball and football and “forcing the city gates” with the neighbourhood boys.

The ride is over as soon as it began, and Gilbert brings the bicycle to a stop in front of what looks like a Catholic chapel. Rather small, stained glass windows like shards of colour from the heavens, and tall oak doors.

“I’m Jewish,” Toris informs Gil.

“I amn’t Catholic either. I don’t even believe in God anymore,” he says casually.

“Then why are we here?” Toris inquires as he follows Gil up the steps. Gilbert pulls the doors open with considerable effort. The church is empty, and the lights are darkened. They would be- it’s a Wednesday evening, and as far as Toris knows Christian masses are held on Sundays.

“Father Andrzejewski!” Gilbert shouts into the empty church. It is nothing if not eerie, and Toris cannot help the little shakes that knock his skinny knees together as he follows Gilbert up the steps.

“Ah hello, Gil!” a voice says as the priest appears from a door beside the alter, smacking what looks like flour from his hands. “Care to help in the kitchen?”

“I brought a friend. Father, this is Toris.”

“Are you Catholic?” the priest asks.

“Jewish,” Toris replies uncomfortably. He figures this will make the priest angry, or start calling him names, but instead he smiles. He doesn’t even try to convert him.

“Well it’s very nice to meet you, Toris. I assume Gilbert hasn’t taught you about the operation I run here?”

The man speaks Russian with an accent- just like he and Gil, but it’s not like theirs. He is probably Polish- there are a lot of Catholics in Warsawa and Krakow and all the other Polish cities and small towns. “Not much,” Toris replies uneasily.

“Below the church there’s a large basement, with a kitchen. I thought there was no sense in wasting it, so I’ve set up a hush-hush safe place. The doors are always metaphorically open when you need a place to stay, but the doors are locked at night, so there’s a spare key in the crack between the top step and the second step. It’s attached to a strand of red twine, and if you can’t find it, just knock on the door for a bit, and someone will answer.”

“Can I stay here?” Toris blurts, pink already dotting his cheeks from embarrassment.

“Some kids do stay here on a permanent basis, yes. Their rent-“

“I’ll pay anything I have. I have a job- delivering newspapers to the sleeping city.” The look Gilbert fixes him with is normal- even the near parts of the sleeping city are a dozen kilometres away from their apartment complex. He has to wake up at 4 every morning, but there is a handy bus system that takes him straight there.

“No, no, nothing like that. We just need permanent residents to maintain the garden in the back, and help bake bread for the homeless veterans every Friday and Saturday.”

“I’ll do it,” Toris says immediately.

“His surname is Laurinaitis,” Gil informs Father Andrzejewski, who in turn makes a small ‘o’ with his lips in understanding.

“Of course,” Father Andrzejewski replies, stuttering a little. Toris hates the reputation his family has developed, but it’s a bit intrinsic to the position of managing a criminal organisation with tens of thousands of members. Toris will escape it anyway he can, and if that means living in the basement of this Catholic church with a bunch of strangers, then that’s what he’ll do.

“Let me get you settled downstairs, Toris. You don’t have to tell anyone your surname if you don’t want to, both me and Gil know what type of reaction your name can inspire.”

The downstairs is damp and probably a bit moldy, but there’s a fire burning in the mantle by the wall and the wall is lit with bare light bulbs, so it isn’t too dark. There are perhaps two-dozen people mulling about, mostly teenagers but a few tired-looking women balancing babies on their hips. There are a lot of languages being tossed around, some of which he understands from his time in Lithuania. Russian, Ukrainian, German, Polish, even bits and pieces of Latvian.

That is how Toris ends up living in a Catholic Church. And since his parents haven’t taken him to a synagogue or even talked about God for a decade, and the nights are long in the dark church, Father Andrzejewski gives him and all the other kids reading material. The books are mainly old mystery novels and secular tales of adventure, but Toris finds some catechisms and biblical books about the lives of saints in the parish office. He reads a book about Maksymilian Kolbe, then Szent Erzsébet. One night Deacon Maciej catches him flipping through the New Testament, and asks him if he wants to learn more. Toris has never thought about religion before, but something about the safe haven the church has given him makes him want to know more. So he nods his head, and a few months later Toris is a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

 

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“We’re having a cram session for biochemistry. Do you want to come?” a girl in his class asks him.

“No thank you, it’s Sunday,” he replies as gently as he can. He isn’t interesting in forcing his views on anyone else, but he attends the service every Sunday and prays every morning and evening and has no plans to change his routine.

 

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It is a late Friday afternoon, in summer. Toris is sixteen now. The air is thick with flies and sickly humidity, and the screen door of the chapel kitchen isn’t doing much to keep out the bugs. Toris is kneading flour, and shuffles his feet towards the sink to rinse the sticky dough from his hands.

“Hello. We were told we could come here to help out,” a voice says in English. Toris doesn’t speak English, but he hears the voice and turns. He’s alone in the kitchen- during the warm months there usually aren’t very many staying in the chapel basement. The cold usually drives most to live within the walls of the chapel.

A teenage girl holds a baby, and two other blond children stand beside her. The older girls sighs as if his blank stare has personally inconvenienced her. “Czy mówisz po angielsku?”

“Nie,” he replies. “W czym mogę pomóc?”

“Ah, fuck that. You’ll have to learn English eventually,” the girl says, clearly aggravated. “My name’s Ada Zielinski. This is Kasper and Feliks, pointing to the identically sized blondes beside him. And this is Jacek.”

“Nie rozum-“ he starts to say, but the girl scoffs at him.

“Oh god, I don’t have time for this fucking idiot. I don’t have time for any of this. We aren’t homeless bums and we don’t even need to stay here for more than a few days if all goes well. My parents are looking for an apartment, we’re not like you. You can watch them, right?” she adds, an afterthought to her diatribe.

“I am sorry, nie rozum-“ Toris is patient by nature, but even he does not particularly enjoy being yelled at in a language he knows nothing about.

The boy farther away from the older girl with chin-length straw coloured hair shoots his sister a dirty look, and translates her words, although much milder and without the insults and expletives.

“Oh, tak,” Toris replies. “Thank you, you said your name was Feliks?” he says in Polish.

“Great, you’re already making friends. Well, see ya, I’m going to join mom and dad at the next apartment on their list. Have fun, kids,” the tall blonde girl says dismissively, and in a moment she’s gone with the baby Jacek, up the stairs, and all of them can hear the church door slam.

“You want to help me out?” Toris asks the two boys. “I’m making bread and chicken soup for veterans. They live in an old people home down the street.”

The boy who translated him shrugs and pushes himself onto the countertop while his brother strategically disappears from the room. “I’m Feliks, yeah,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Toris Laurinaitus. Are you from Poland?”

“Yeah, Krakow. It’s the most beautiful city, you ever been there?”

“No, I haven’t, but I’ve heard of it. It used to be your capital, right?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Warsawa isn’t that great,” he replies. “Where are you from? You from here, in Kaliningrad?”

“Lithuania,” he answers, as he resumes kneading the wheat bread dough. He grabs a cleaver from the knife block and chops the dough into six pieces. “Want to help?”

“I guess,” Feliks drawls, very clearly not very interested.

“If you want to help, help. Otherwise, I don’t want your bad attitude. I got enough of it from your older sister,” Toris says firmly.

“Woah, cool it. It’s not a crime to not be super excited about working,” he says, a bit dismissively.

“Can you speak slower, please? Polish isn’t my first language.”

“Wouldn’t know it from talking to you. Your Polish is actually quite good, how long have you been speaking it?” he asks casually.

“Since I was in primary school. There were a lot of Polish people in Lithuania, where I was from.”

“Which city?” he presses, narrowing his eyes critically.

“Ignalina,” Toris answers squarely.

“What apartment building are your parents looking at?” Toris asks a few moments later as Feliks reluctantly begins to roll up his shirt sleeves to help stir up the large container of soup simmering on low heat.

“Eh, I don’t remember the street name, but it’s by this corner grocery store, and a salon.”

Toris nearly drops the spoon on the floor, and has to stop himself from grabbing Feliks’ shoulders and telling him to get out while he still can. Or is it already too late for him? Maybe his family’s already in with Vernaja Semya, maybe they’re setting up their money laundering operation as he cuts up bread dough in the kitchen of an old church.

“Don’t move there,” he says weakly.

“Why ever not?” Feliks asks, wincing as the soup splatters his wrist. He glances over at Toris and sees the dark expression on his face, the way his features have contorted in fear and concern. “Woah, you’re serious?”

“Of course I’m serious,” Toris hisses.

“Then what are you talking about? Did you used to live there?”

Toris grabs Feliks by the elbows and pulls him away from the stove and into the dark corridor that used to connect to a room that no longer exists. Here, Toris is positive that no one can here them or see them even if someone were to be in the basement.

“What the hell-?” Feliks trails off as Toris lights a candle.

“Are you initiating me into some cult? Because you’re kind of freaking me out.” Toris sighs deeply to collect himself. “Have you ever heard of Vernaja Semya?”

“So that’s-“ Feliks takes a long second to try to work his way through the translation. “Something family?”

“Loyal family,” Toris tells him. “It’s an organised criminal organisation, specialising in money laundering, murder, extortion, and prostitution.”

“What?” Feliks exclaims. “You’re kidding,” he says, putting a hand to his chest.

“No, I’m not. Tell your parents not to buy there, because they’ll suck all of you in.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” he points out.

“That’s because I am,” Toris informs him in a quiet voice.

Feliks pauses, as if considering. Then he smiles callously. “You have a touch of melodrama in you, you know that? You take me to a dark room with a candle to tell me that my family’s about to be involved in a murderous mob, quite histrionic.”

"Is that honestly what you’re going to talk about when your life is on the line?” Toris explodes, furious as he stamps out the candle with the tip of his finger.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Feliks says, and Toris storms back into the kitchen with a burned out candle and with a distinct feeling that he has failed.

 

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“God, our professor is such a prick,” Feliks complains, scrubbing at his eyes tiredly. They've been working on this math modeling project for hours.

He can’t be the Feliks that he befriended as a teenager, that he loved, that he fought and ended up getting backstabbed by. It’s a different Feliks and he knows it, because they have different surnames, they lived in different countries (Feliks Zielinski was from Krakow, Feliks Łukasiewicz is from Gniezno), and they don’t look very similar other than blond hair.

“Yes, he isn’t very kind,” Toris agrees mildly, typing furiously on the lab report. He’s in Feliks’ flat, which he shares with a young woman from Budapest named Erzsébet, whom he hasn’t met yet, and Tino, a Finnish student who he knows by association. He was reluctant to agree to stop by, because he would hate to put Feliks and his roommate in any danger by being seen with them. Feliks had convinced him though, which might have been a poor decision.

“What city in Lithuania did you say you were from?” Feliks asks.

“I didn’t,” he says. “But Ignalina, if you must know.”

“Huh. Never heard of it,” Feliks says. “Is it a large city? I’m afraid I only know Vilnius.”

“That’s quite alright, it’s rather small, perhaps only 5000 inhabitants.”

Toris is struck by extreme déjà vu, of standing in the a chapel kitchen when he was homeless and only sixteen and so filled with hope about what his future would bring. When he met Feliks, the one from Kaliningrad whose surname had been Zielinski instead of Łukasiewicz, and told him about the mob. Feliks had asked where he was from just the same, and he had answered just the same.

He tried to stop equating Feliks Zielinski and Feliks Łukasiewicz in his mind, and resolved to never think of the other Feliks again if he could help it.


End file.
